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Dawn Mills man served as B.C.’s Lieutenant-Governor

Have you ever hear of a medical doctor from Dawn Mills by the name of Doctor T.R. McInnis? Probably not. But as we found out last week with those trivia questions on Chatham-Kent, there are a lot of things we don’t know, myself included.

In 1864, Dr. Thomas Robert McInnis was listed as the sole “physician and surgeon” in Dawn Mills, near Dresden. Now keep in mind that Dawn Mills in the 1860s was not what it is today.

The hamlet was brought into existence by T.H. Taylor who operated a very successful water power, milling and shipping industry. In the 1860s, Dawn Mills was the most important community on the Sydenham River as well as being the highest upstream. It was a very prosperous community and full of great potential.

As the 1860s drew to a close, a surging lumber industry had made Dresden (farther downstream) the second largest community in Kent County. It was at this time that Dr. McInnis moved his practice to Dresden where, according to the 1867 McEvoy’s Directory, he was in the business of “providing drugs, medicine, dry goods, groceries etc.” His business was operated, at first, with his partner George Webster on the site of the old canning factory.

In 1866 George Webster died rather unexpectedly and McInnis married his widow (Martha Eleanor Griggs Webster) and then moved to a large frame colonial home on Water Street in Dresden.

It was at this home that his sons Tom and William were born. Tom was born in 1867 and William four years later. I believe that this house, although moved a few times, still exists today at 396 Hughes St.

McInnis was much more that a doctor of medicine – he was almost the WalMart of Dresden in the late 1860s. He stayed in Dresden until the 1874. This was shortly after he had served a term as village reeve that same year.

Always on the lookout for a better place to use his entrepreneurial skills, as well as his medical degree, he decided to move to British Colombia. Sensing that the opening of the CPR railroad would offer all sorts of opportunities for a man such as himself he wasted little time in establishing himself on Canada’s west coast.

Vancouver was booming when McInnis arrived and he wasted little time in positioning himself in the politics of the new land. He was elected mayor of New Westminster in 1876 and to the House of Commons in 1878. Continuing his rapid rise in B.C. politics he was appointed to the Senate in 1881.

In gratitude for Dr. McInnis’s contributions over the years he was promoted in 1897 to the post of Lieutenant-Governor of British Colombia.

Don’t ever think that government patronage is a new thing. It has been going on for centuries!

In his role as Lieutenant Governor, Dr. McInnis was far from a shrinking violet. He became heavily involved in the politics of the day and had a long and rather tempestuous career in the formative stages of a provincial government that faced growing pains as to whether this new world should keep “old school” political ideas or become progressive and innovative.

McInnis, as one might surmise, wanted progressive change and new approaches to old political ways and means. He was eventually led to a number of controversial and contentious issues and was ultimately dismissed from his position.

T. R. McInnis died in Vancouver on March 14, 1904 after what could only be described as a remarkable and dynamic, if somewhat controversial, political career.

Oddly enough, it was not this Tom McInnis that a number of years ago I came to be acquainted with in, a number of seemingly diverse areas. It was in the eldest son of this progressive doctor that I developed a fascinating interest.

Tom MacInnes (he rechristened himself, I surmise, to recognize more succinctly his Scottish heritage or maybe to distinguish himself from his famous father)) was born in Dresden, moved to B.C. with his family and then began a series of careers that spanned the Klondike, railways in China and some of the most distinctive poetry ever penned by a Canadian.

Next week I will give you much more information on young Tom MacInnes who did so many amazing things in his life that it makes his father’s rise from a traditional country doctor in small-town Ontario to the positions of Senator and Lieutenant Governor of B.C. seem rather humdrum.